


Blue, White and Communist

by inknpaint



Category: Captain America (Comics), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-23
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-30 07:07:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1015629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inknpaint/pseuds/inknpaint
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winter Soldier, more myth than fact, buried deep within Russia's Cold War secrets, has resurfaced. But is it really him behind these attacks? The enemy is baiting Captain America out into the open, but what will Steve discover once he's stepped into the line of fire?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Blue

**Author's Note:**

> I had posted the first chapter to this fic awhile back, but I went back and rewrote it. So I decided to take the old work down and post this one up. More chapters to come!

Winter—if you could even call it that: snow crunching under his boots, clinging to his hair, melting on his coat; this was hardly winter, hardly snow. Something about this city, this mission...he hated it, but he didn’t question it. How many years had it been since he’d last been taken out of stasis? As far as he could guess, it had been decades. Nothing about the air seemed right; everything had changed since his last mission. But he was given no perception of time, his memories wiped from mission to mission. He was only left his a haze of what he had been doing before. The man who had pulled him out this time, he was different. Beyond the fact that he was not the soldier’s old master, this man did not hold the same ideals. This disgusted the soldier, but that bad taste was taken from him within moments: deprived of his sense, mission implanted loyalties replaced. 

He tugged at his left sleeve, a subconscious habit formed to keep his metallic arm concealed. The Winter Soldier didn’t exist till he was behind his gun. For now, he was just another New Yorker: waiting at corners, counting the blocks till his destination, drinking his morning coffee, briefcase in hand. He had his orders, the plans mapped out in his mind, but plans never worked out the way they were supposed to; improvising was part of the job description.

“J-James?” her words caught in her throat, her blue eyes wide with shock, bitterness and...fear buried deeply in her tone. 

The soldier narrowed his eyes, positive she was addressing him, but unsure why he would know this woman, why she would call him, ‘James’...he grabbed her wrist tightly but made sure not to draw attention to them as he pulled her into an alleyway. As soon as they were out of sight from any curious bystanders, he pushed her against the wall—his cybernetic fingers closing firming around her throat.

“Who are you?” He knew her...why did he know her?

She used his lapse in focus against him, kicking him in the side to get him to release her. He stumbled back a few steps, a scowl on his face.

“J—Winter Soldier...you-you are the one behind all of this. The bombing, the assassination...how could I have been so blind,” the woman began to take advantage of the soldier’s falter, but he was already making his move. 

He blocked her kick with his arm, before countering with a swing from his briefcase. This fight was getting them nowhere, each move the other made was blocked and countered— making it look more like a dance that had been well rehearsed. But the soldier needed this to end, now. He caught her next jab with his left hand, immediately sending an electric pulse through her system, enough to put her out, but not kill her…

“I’m sorry...Natalia.”

Natalia. He doesn’t recognize it, but it feels so familiar on his tongue. He’s not sure where it came from, but dull ache in his head tells him to keep moving forward—to leave this avenue of thought behind along with his heavy coat in that alley. The soldier had work to do, a mission to complete. He would worry about this later. 

The soldier went over the city’s map in his head as he jump the gaps between buildings and worked his way across the skyline. He couldn’t use his original destination, not after his run-in with...the Black Widow...he nearly misses his next jump, the dull ache momentarily pulling his focus away from his jump. But it’s fine...he’s made it into position. The Winter Soldier pulls his gun from the briefcase in his hand, assembling it quickly and finding the concealed apartment of his target within milliseconds. His timing could be more perfect.

The man stepped straight into the soldier’s crosshairs…

“Shit,” he cursed in Russian, despite his programing screaming in his head. He hesitated; why did he hesitated? He missed...the Winter Soldier never missed.

Something was wrong. More than his missing the shot, more than Natalia...he knew this man. Despite everything that was telling him he didn’t he knew him. The man’s blond hair blue eyes, sharp feature worn down by war but still effective in a fight; he was not much different from back then...back then? He has to stop to support himself on the wall of an alley, just a blog from his target’s apartment. The dull ache in his head has turned into a sharp stabbing at his temples, blurring his vision, heightening the sounds around him...he can feel blood dripping from his nose, running down his chin as he staggered towards this man’s apartment. 

The soldier made it into the man’s apartment undetected...the headache was still impeding his senses. But he waited, gun ready and aimed steadily at the blonde man’s forehead the second he stopped into the room.

“B-Bucky?!”

“Who the hell is Bucky?”


	2. White

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [Lauren](xblackwidow52x.tumblr.com) for helping work out some bit with this chapter. Writing Natasha isn't my forte, but it's her's so hopefully this turned out well.

“‘tasha…”

She’d woken up—her bright red hair and clothes saturated with melted snow—slightly dazed, but the sudden shock of what had just happened quickly pulled her from it. James…

“Natasha…”

She rubbed her wrist, pulling herself up from the snow—a slight sick feeling churning her stomach. Natasha closed her eyes, folding her arms across her chest and leaning against the brick wall of the alley way. The stasis tube, her vivid memory of it sending chills down her spine: James suspended in the green translucent liquid that filled the tube, a respirator over his nose and mouth, wire monitoring his vitals—

“Natasha!”

“What…?” She was sitting on a medical table on the SHIELD helicarrier, completely lost in thought. Fury stood in front of her, a stern look of concern on his face. “I’m fine, Nick.”

“Fine? It took me three tries to get your attention just now. What happened down there?”

“I told you exactly what happened,” she said, her voice coming out slightly hoarse as if she’d been yelling all day. “I was walking back to my place after seeing Steve home...making sure he was okay after all the hell he’s been through recently. That’s when I saw him.”

“Who?”

“The Winter Soldier,” she said, clear frustration in her voice. She’d gone over this already, she didn’t need to do it again. “He...he caught me off guard, took me out before I had a chance to stop him.”

“The Winter Soldier...you’re positive?”

“Yes, Nick, I am. I just”—

“Then why didn’t he kill you?”

“I-I don’t know,” the words left her lips broken, the clear uncertainty behind her words unnerving to anyone that heard it. The Black Widow never showed weakness easily, and yet, here she was...falling apart, barely holding herself together. 

A long silence passed between them. She could feel Fury’s stare, but she refused to look up from her hands. 

“How did you know him?”

Did. The tense put on the word hurt more than she thought it would. She did know him, but the man she met today…

“He was one of my trainers...in the Red Room,” she looked up at him, her trained lack of emotion not only behind her words but in her expression. Fury could see past it, but she was glad he didn’t press the subject more.

A cool, female voice came over the PA in the room, announcing Steve’s arrival. Fury acknowledge the voice briefly before turning back to Natasha. “Be in the briefing room as soon as you’re ready, ‘tasha.” 

“The Winter Soldier...he-he really is Bucky,” the determination to mask her emotions has drained out of her voice again as soon as Fury had his back to her, “isn’t he?”

“Whoever he is, he just took a shot at Captain America.”

\---

“What is it?” he asked, once their contact was out of earshot. “Natalia?”

His voice cut through her thoughts, distracted by the children playing on the park: laughing, crying, screaming….

‘Do you ever think about it? Did you ever want to be a parent?’

“I almost had all this...once…” she finally answered, her words so quiet they can barely be heard over the wind.

James turned her to face him, a soft look on his face as he tucked a loose curl of her red hair behind her ear and kissed her on the forehead. He wrapped his arm around her waist as she leaned into him—the briefest touch of compassion, moment of emotion. That was it and it meant the world. 


End file.
